Online Video Is Really The Next Big Thing [Study]

With the much publicized launch of Google TV, all eyes are now on internet TV growth and how it will impact both areas, i.e. the web and the television business. Cisco issued its Visual Networking Index forecast through 2014 and gives a thorough idea of the role of video in the internet landscape to come. Read on.

Video Is Biggest driver of internet traffic
Video currently accounts for more than one third of overall consumer internet traffic and will edge towards the 40% mark at the end of this year, excluding P2P video file sharing.

Online video as a whole (TV, video on demand, Internet, and P2P) is set to exceed 91% of global consumer traffic by 2014.

Internet TV
By 2014, Internet TV will be over 8% of consumer Internet traffic, and ambient video will be an additional 5 percent of consumer Internet traffic.

Internet video to TV is forecast to record a 107% compound annual growth rate through 2014. Internet-enabled TV is seen to grow an average 285% by 2014. Gaming is set to gain 86% of consumer internet during the period.

Video-on-demand (VoD) traffic will double every two and a half years through 2014.

Video communications
Traffic growth of Video over instant messaging and video calling is accelerating and is seen to grow sevenfold in the 2009 to 2014 period, while business video conferencing is set to increase ten-fold over the forecast period. Over 50% of business videoconferencing traffic will be online by 2014 and its traffic is growing almost three times as fast as overall business IP traffic.

Web-based video conferencing will grow 180-fold in the period, with HD video conferencing accounting for 57% of business video conferencing traffic in 2014, up from 31 percent in 2009.

“The global online video community will surpass 1 billion users by the end of 2010. This number of people is exceeded only slightly by the populations of China (1.3 billion) and India (1.1 billion), making this user group equivalent to the third largest country in the world,” Cisco stated. Quite amazing, never thought of it that way.

At the same time, annual global IP traffic will exceed three-quarters of a zettabyte (767 exabytes) in four years, it said.

Real food for thought. Is the sky or just space the limit, as far as the Internet goes?

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